The Venus Blueprint

by Richard Merrick

  For instance, the egg symbol was sacred to the Babylonians. They believed that a Cosmic Egg of wondrous size fell from the heavens into the Euphrates river. From this marvelous egg, the goddess Ishtar (another Venusian goddess) was hatched. For this reason, the egg came to symbolize the spring celebration of Austrõn, Ôstarâ, or Eástre, a later Saxon goddess descended from Ishtar.

  In time the Cosmic Egg story migrated to many other parts of the world. In Rome a representation of it preceded processions in honor of the Mother Goddess Roman. The egg was also part of the sacred ceremonies of the Mysteries of Bacchus, who incidentally is associated with the Green Man carved throughout Rosslyn chapel. The Druids used the egg as their sacred emblem, and in Northern Europe, China, and Japan, eggs were colored for their sacred festivals. Yet the egg as a fertility symbol has an even more ancient origin.

  The Sanskrit term for the Cosmic Egg is Brahmanda, Brahm meaning “cosmos” and Anda meaning “egg.” In the Vedic Upanishads (appendices to the Vedas), the Hiranyagarbha or “golden fetus” was believed to have floated around in emptiness for a while before breaking in half to form the Dyaus (Heaven) and Prithvi (Earth). In this way, the egg represented celestial fertility and was associated with the feminine planet Venus. Together, the Cosmic Egg and Venus symbolized renewal and everlasting life at the top of the World Mountain of Meru.

  For these reasons, I finally accepted the composite Venus Blueprint symbol as the most likely geometry and meaning behind the tower etching in Rosslyn’s sacristy. It seemed to me to be etched directly across from the now-sealed entrance of the crypt as a kind of fertility blessing into the afterlife for the Rosslyn barons. It was also an obscure invocation of Venus that the Church Fathers would not recognize.

  From this study I concluded that a very deep connection must exist between medieval Rosslyn and some descended Vedic cosmology represented by the Blueprint. This connection was not simply cosmological or spiritual, but grounded in the geometry and physics of resonance as represented by the orbital pattern of Venus. It implied that an ancient and very sophisticated knowledge of harmonic science must have been a central inspiration behind early religion and pyramidal temple building. The Blueprint really did seem like the missing link Stuart and I had been searching for to help prove a connection between Rosslyn and Venus.

  Vedic Cosmology

  Everything was finally beginning to make sense now. The Venus Blueprint had been at the heart of harmonic science and religious cosmology since time immemorial. The Vedic mythology of Mount Meru, deduced no doubt by tracking the pentagonal orbit of Venus, was actually a veiled reference to the Fibonacci series and golden ratio at the heart of the star. The golden egg was the shell around the Meru pyramid, symbolizing the mythical World Egg and central Axis Mundi that must fertilized it.

  In this way, the Blueprint had become the ultimate symbol of creation—a geometric harmony of resonance and damping; energy and space; spirals and circles—all rolled into one. Shrouded in metaphor and mythology since the dawn of civilization, the Venus Blueprint offered real evidence for an ancient harmonic science.

  Suspecting that someone must surely know of this, I began looking for more scholarly papers connecting Meru to Venus. It wasn’t long before I found what I was looking for. In a paper written by Louisiana State University professor Subhash Kak entitled “Vena, Veda, Venus,” I found a compelling argument that Venus was at the center of Vedic cosmology. Among other things, the author suggests that Greek Aphrodite was named Venus after Vena, a Vedic fertility deity, and that even the word “Veda” pertains to the planet Venus as mother and protector of Meru.

  Kak makes the case that Venus has many attested names, including Bhrgu, Kavya, Kavi Usanas, and Shukra. According to the early twentieth-century Indian researcher B. G. Tilak, the earliest name for Venus was, in fact, Vena, a masculine deity with feminine qualities.

  For example, Vena is mentioned in Rig-Veda 10.123, which is dedicated to Shukra, the goddess of Venus. Here Vena compels Shukra to be born from the sun god, Surya, or sky god, Indra, as his seed:

  This Vena impels them who are in the womb of the variegated one; the membrane of light measures out the sky. At the contact of the waters and the sun the wise kiss him as an infant.

  This hymn later calls Vena the “son of the sun.” Since Venus is metaphorically reborn every time it transits across the Sun, this hymn appears to be describing the Venus transit in which Shukra is born from Vena’s womb to fertilize the Earth’s oceans. This interpretation is reinforced by the Saivite glosses of this story, in which Shukra (Venus) is swallowed up by Shiva (indirectly referencing the sun god Surya) and later expelled as semen.15 This is the earliest description of the Venus transit or Birth of Venus.

  As already mentioned, such transits of the Sun by Venus are very rare, occurring in long cycles of either 105.5 or 121.5 years within a double pattern that only repeats every 243 years.16 Since Venus and Earth share an orbital resonance period of eight years, the transits always come in pairs eight years apart.

  For example, the last pair of transits occurred over a century ago in 1874 and 1882. At the time of this writing in 2011, we sit between two transits—the first in 2004, which crossed the lower half of the Sun, and the second on June 5–6, 2012, which will cross the upper half of the Sun. Since the next pair of transits won’t occur until 2117 and 2125, the 2012 transit is probably the last one anyone alive today will experience. Such rarity would have made this celestial event very important indeed to Vedic astronomers.

  Subhash Kak goes on to say that the fertility symbolism could extend to the idea of enlightenment. We can understand the split between Shiva and Vishnu in the Rig-Veda as an inner manifestation of the outer cosmos. Shiva as the “sun” of consciousness and Vishnu as the cognitive category of intelligence would ultimately draw its “light” from the physical Sun. This is why the Vedic god of Mercury, Budha, represents intelligence and enlightenment from the Sun.

  The patterns and personalities of the planets in the Rig-Veda are fundamental to understanding humanity’s earliest scientific and religious ideals. Planetary resonance patterns were celestial symbols for fertility of all kinds, whether the birth of a child, the harvest of crops, personal spiritual enlightenment, or rebirth into the afterlife. The cosmological order of the planets was the source of all meaning and purpose behind the Vedas. Summarizing this in a single cosmological diagram incorporating elements of the Blueprint, it is easy to see how sun god Surya/Indra would inseminate the “womb” of Vena through a “membrane of light” (Fig. 12).

  FIGURE 12. Vedic cosmology of Sun-Venus insemination

  The “variegated” womb described in the Rig-Veda could best be interpreted as a reference to the pentagonal orbit of Venus, while the planet itself represented the Sun’s shining seed. This is understood from the Sanskrit word Shukra, which translates as “shining,” “white,” or “clear semen.” So while Shukra is described as a male seed, the rose orbital pattern of Vena is implied as a feminine Brahminical aspect of the planet to symbolize the creative aspect of fertilization and gestation.

  In this cosmological model, fertilization occurs when Venus transits the Sun as the two rise together out of the eastern (Eastre) ocean. This planetary mating was probably seen as initiating the gestation process of sunlight, giving birth to living creatures in the waters below. This is the essential idea of Vedic cosmology.

  As the diagram shows it, the so-called Birth of Venus could be described as a virgin birth into the Cosmic or World Egg. Within this egg sits the sacred mountain, pyramid, or tower of Meru reaching up to the Moon and Sun hovering overhead. The Blueprint symbolism thus combines all of these concepts into one unified cosmological symbol for birth, rebirth, and enlightenment.

  Even into modern day, Vedic celestial fertility is celebrated in the Hindu astrological tradition known as the “Birth Star” of JyeshTha, a month in the Hindu calendar corresponding to May-June.17 As it happens, the last Venus transit of the twenty-first cent
ury occurs in JyeshTha on June 6, 2012. With the Mayan Tzolk’in calendar ending on this same day prior to the end of the Fifth Sun in December, Venus seems poised to deliver the Earth a new Sun.

  CHAPTER 4

  Heart of the Star

  The more I studied the Vedas, the more I began to understand the significance of the Venus Blueprint. The Latin name Venus was an allusion to the ancient Morning Star deity Vena, from which the word “Veda” originated. I learned that “Veda” translates as “knowledge” or “to see,” the same root behind the English words “video” and “vision.” And I learned there was even an ancient Hindu stringed instrument named “Veena,” metaphorically linking the orbital resonance pattern of Venus with the harmonic properties of Meru.

  Beneath the Rig-Veda I was finding evidence of a spiritual science based on resonance and cymatic patterning. The Venus Blueprint was not only a symbol, but also the actual orbital resonance pattern of Venus that acts as a real gravitational dampener to counterbalance Earth in its habitable orbit known as the “Goldilocks Zone” (Fig. 13).

  Sharing all this with Stuart, he agreed that Vena’s “variegated womb” probably was the rose pattern of Venus, and it was through this that a new Sun would be born. He urged me to keep following this path of inquiry, suggesting it might unlock a deeper message in Rosslyn. Through his enthusiasm and encouragement, I redoubled my efforts to connect a few more dots.

  As we already know from Pingala, Mount Meru was associated with the Fibonacci series and golden ratio. And from the Rig-Veda, we know Meru extended into the sky such that the Sun, Moon, and other planets hovered overhead. From Pingala’s account, we also know Meru was a Fibonacci spiral, and its summit was made of gold associated with the golden ratio. The question is how much did the authors of the Rig-Veda know about the planet’s orbits, and could this have led them to develop the composite Blueprint symbol?

  FIGURE 13. Venus orbital resonance pattern with Earth

  It is a fact that the planets are spaced at an average of the golden ratio, and the Sun’s heliosphere is a golden spiral with the planets spaced close to right angles along this spiral. Ancient Vedic priests could well have deduced this from the orbital resonance between Venus-Mercury and Earth-Venus (detail in footnote).18 Since these planets exhibit Fibonacci proportions such as 8:3 and 13:8, they could have concluded that all of the “wandering stars” lay along a right-angled golden spiral or swastika around the Sun.19

  This mountain of cadence toward the Sun is then a metaphor for reaching toward God without ever looking him or her in the face.20 To these people, the face of god would have been the golden mean at the center of the Sun with its spiral representing all the other gods. The spiral would then logically wrap around the Cosmic or World Egg that encompassed all of the visible planets.

  As we saw earlier, the inner pyramid of the golden egg was a symbol for Mount Meru. Since it was contained inside the golden or Cosmic Egg, its tip or eye would then represent the congress of the Sun and Venus at the golden axis of the spiral (Fig. 14).

  FIGURE 14. The Cosmic or World Egg as a symbol of the Fibonacci series

  In addition to being a sacred fertility symbol, the Meru pyramid metaphor also seems to have been designed as a kind of classroom aid to explain the underlying physics of harmonic resonance and damping. It is easy to see how ancient Vedic priests would conclude creation emanated from the Sun like a serpent, both coiled and as a traveling wave. It is also easy to see how this cosmological model could become such an important symbol.21

  In ancient Greece, we find it as the Orphic Egg entwined by a serpent. The golden egg and its corresponding Cosmic Serpent is really evidence of an ancient harmonic science in which Venus was known to be central to life on Earth, bringing coherence, order, and stability during formation of the solar system, just as a living egg does for gestating life. In fact, this golden egg symbolism is common to many fables and legends.

  For instance, there is Aesop’s famous fable “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs.” Dating back to ancient Egypt, this story is about a cottager and his wife who had a hen that laid a golden egg every day. Thinking the hen had a great lump of gold on its inside, they killed the hen to get all the gold at once. But when they opened it up, they found to their surprise there was no gold inside. While this is usually explained as a morality play against greed, it is more likely a fable describing the role of the infinite golden ratio—something of immense value that can never be found—as a sacred fertility symbol.

  The same idea is repeated in the oral legend of the Vikings known as “Jack and the Beanstalk.” As every child knows, this is the story of Jack who plants a magic bean that grows overnight into a giant beanstalk reaching far into the sky. Climbing this tree into the clouds, Jack finds a castle and within it a hen that lays golden eggs. Here the beanstalk represents the Tree of Life (a substitute for Meru) that provides a bridge or ladder into the sky. This is where Kubera’s gold—the gold hidden by serpents—may be found and where all of the gods dance and sing.

  Through these and many other stories of unattainable golden objects, we can glimpse a time when people believed everything—planets, plants, and people—all unfold or resonate out from the invisible center of Fibonacci spirals. With the spiraling tree as Mount Meru extending into the sky, the hen that laid the golden egg was yet another symbol for the feminine womb of Venus.

  Unfolding the Rose Line

  Soon after I realized that Mount Meru was the etching in Rosslyn and that it had been an old symbol for the Fibonacci series and golden mean, I began to look for a mathematical sequence that could show how the dimensions of the chapel might be derived directly from it. It seemed logical to me that if the golden mean was so central to Vedic cosmology and Rosslyn chapel was in turn linked to the Vedas, the chapel itself could be built up from this one constant. After several days, I found my answer—Rosslyn could indeed be “grown” from the golden mean like a rose.

  The Rose Line of Rosslyn

  The Golden Mean F = 1.618033 …

  The golden mean is infinite. Yet from this single point of infinity we can unfold the dimension of time using the standard expression for the golden mean.

  Time 5 = (2Ф — 1)2

  This resonates or unfolds a five-point temporal star from the golden mean. To then create a space within which fivefold time can exist, we add one dimension to time and square it.

  Space_1D 36 = (Time + 1)2

  This unfolds time into thirty-six-line segments, represented in the chapel as its width of thirty-six feet. The second dimension is then found by using time and first-dimensional space together while increasing the order of magnitude.

  Space_2D 72 = Space_1D / Time * 10

  This is the length of the chapel, which amounts to a frequency doubling (or octave) above the first space dimension. The last step is then to divide second-dimensional space by F.

  Space_3D 44.5 Space_2D / Ф

  With this we have the height of the chapel inside the choir area. So, while the first dimension unfolds from time and the second dimension unfolds from the first divided by time, the third dimension unfolds when divided by the golden ratio F. This reconnects to the irrational square root of time, closing the circuit between third-dimensional space and time as:

  Ф (((2Ф — 1)2 + 1)2 / (2F — 1)2 * 10) / 44.5

  Ф (((2Ф — 1)2 + 1)2 / (2F — 1)2) / 4.45

  Ф (5 + (1 / 5))2 / 4.45

  Ф (7 + (1 / 5)2) / 4.45

  Ф 7.2 / 4.45

  Ф Chapel_length / Chapel_height

  The dimensions of Rosslyn can rightly be described as a pentagonal rose line that unfolds every 72 degrees around a 360-degree circle with golden mean intersections occurring at multiples of 36 degrees. Tracing out a mathematical rose line from its dimensions, Rosslyn chapel is then an architectural unfolding of the angles of a pentagram.

  While Sinclair and Hay may not have designed the chapel from the golden mean in this way, the fact remains the chapel’s dimensions
can be derived using a single recursive mathematical expression symbolic of space and time. The ability to calculate Rosslyn’s dimensions with a simple formulaic sequence like this proves that the designers used some kind of geometric guide with the golden mean in its design.

  The Rosslyn Blueprint

  Having studied the math, science, and symbolism of Meru, I was now beginning to suspect that the Venus Blueprint had also been used to design Rosslyn chapel. It seemed to me that the chapel’s floor plan had several different sacred geometries going on—all begging for some overarching harmonic design to unify them.

  The acoustical properties of the interior space also suggested some kind of organic geometry had been used to make it an ideal resonance chamber. Then there were the references to Venus—its pentacle carvings, musical cherubim, musical cubes, and beehives—all harmonic symbols. Everything seemed to be pointing to the Blueprint as a design element.

  Pondering this long and hard, I wondered if the Venus Blueprint might align with the dimensions of the chapel and mark detail features, such as pillar placement, spacing of windows, and the thickness of the walls. Since the Blueprint fractal had so many intersecting lines and a gradient of dimensions between its fractal tiers, I figured it would have made a great “temple template” in combination with the first two steps in Figure 5 (Fig. 15).

  FIGURE 15. The Venus Blueprint of Rosslyn chapel (Continued from Fig. 5)

  Bringing Rosslyn’s floor plan and the Venus Blueprint together side by side in an illustration program, I scaled the two to the same length to see how they compared. Sliding the earlier squared circle westward to align with the chapel facade, I then overlaid the Blueprint so that its largest circle was perfectly inscribed by the chapel’s square. I was stunned by what I saw.